Table of global configs (user configs, env var, and cli flag)

[dbeatty10]

Proposed solution

It would be awesome if there were dense table of all the global configs and their associated user configs, environment variables, and CLI flags.

Maybe like this (the content of which I have only partially verified):

YAML User Config	Full Environment Variable	Command Line Flag
send_anonymous_usage_stats	DBT_SEND_ANONYMOUS_USAGE_STATS	--send-anonymous-usage-stats
use_colors	DBT_USE_COLORS	--use-colors
use_colors_file	DBT_USE_COLORS_FILE	--use-colors-file
partial_parse	DBT_PARTIAL_PARSE	--partial-parse
write_json	DBT_WRITE_JSON	--write-json
warn_error	DBT_WARN_ERROR	--warn-error
debug	DBT_DEBUG	--debug
version_check	DBT_VERSION_CHECK	--version-check
fail_fast	DBT_FAIL_FAST	--fail-fast
use_experimental_parser	DBT_USE_EXPERIMENTAL_PARSER	--use-experimental-parser
static_parser	DBT_STATIC_PARSER	--static-parser
printer_width	DBT_PRINTER_WIDTH	--printer-width
log_format	DBT_LOG_FORMAT	--log-format
log_format_file	DBT_LOG_FORMAT_FILE	--log-format-file
log_level	DBT_LOG_LEVEL	--log-level
log_level_file	DBT_LOG_LEVEL_FILE	--log-level-file
log_cache_events	DBT_LOG_CACHE_EVENTS	--log-cache-events
indirect_selection	DBT_INDIRECT_SELECTION	--indirect-selection
quiet	DBT_QUIET	--quiet
print	DBT_PRINT	--print
cache_selected_only	DBT_CACHE_SELECTED_ONLY	--cache-selected-only
populate_cache	DBT_POPULATE_CACHE	--populate-cache
full_refresh	DBT_FULL_REFRESH	--full-refresh
introspect	DBT_INTROSPECT	--introspect
store_failures	DBT_STORE_FAILURES	--store-failures
target	DBT_TARGET	--target
profile	DBT_PROFILE	--profile

Not within dbt_project.yml

YAML User Config	Full Environment Variable	Command Line Flag
N/A	DBT_PROJECT_DIR	--project-dir
N/A	DBT_PROFILES_DIR	--profiles-dir

Within dbt_project.yml as top-level configs instead of under flags:

YAML User Config	Full Environment Variable	Command Line Flag
target-path	DBT_TARGET_PATH	--target-path
log-path	DBT_LOG_PATH	--log-path

Caveats

Further verification needed

As noted in #3264, some of the configs listed in the "YAML User Config" column may only work as environment variables and/or CLI flags and might not work within YAML config (like profiles.yml).

Missing docs

The row for log_cache_events above does not have hyperlinks because I didn't see any relevant documentation for this config.

Opened #4664 as a result.

Problem

The big idea is that there are a lot of global flags and/or global configs that can be specified in three different ways (lower takes priority):

1. user config
2. environment variable
3. CLI flag

i.e., if all three are provided, then the CLI flag takes precedence.

But it's not always easy to see what the different options are. In particular, the relevant environment variable is often a guessing game, and the user config name is not always clear either. The CLI flag is the thing that is most consistently included in the documentation and examples, but even that is not always searchable.

Link to the page on docs.getdbt.com requiring updates

Either this page or some other page:

• https://docs.getdbt.com/reference/global-configs/about-global-configs

What part(s) of the page would you like to see updated?

See proposed solution above.

Contributions

• I have read the contribution docs, and understand what's expected of me.

Additional information

No response

[graciegoheen]

bump on this! @matthewshaver

[mirnawong1]

hey @dbeatty10 , this issue isn't similar to this one, right? i think they are slightly different and if so, I'll keep the other open. if they are the same -- what do you think about consolidating it and i can add my write up in yours as yours is more comprehensive?

[dbeatty10]

Yeah similar, but slightly different!

So agreed to keep them both open.

Both of these could easily get stale and out-of-date when changes are made to dbt-core.

Here is a script that uses click to determine which CLI flags (and environment variables) are relevant to each sub-command.

We could use a script like this to auto-generate the relationship between CLI flags and sub-commands.

I don't think it would cover the relationship between the user config name (for profiles.yml) and the CLI flag though.